Naropa University Oakland

Master of Liberal Arts Program in Creation Spirituality

 

 MOVING TOWARD STILLNESS

 

CSP 739W                                         Number of credit units:  1

 

Instructor: Robert Rice                   Instructor’s contact phone number: 707-568-5559

                                                          Email address: [email protected]

 

Class Schedule: Spring semester 2004, Saturday, May 1, 9:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m., Sunday, May 2, 9:00a.m.-1:00 p.m.

 

Course Description:

Participants will explore the dynamic relationship between movement and stillness, by engaging in active, often playful, experiences of letting-go, as well as through quiet experience of distillation. Open-ended improvisations invite each participant, according to his/her own timing, to enter the transformative life-dance where body and spirit are one.

 

Moving Toward Stillness Explores the dynamic relationship of body and spirit, movement and stillness. Movement is improvisational rather than prescribed, and ranges from simple and contemplative to playful and active.  This allows each person’s creative movement expressions to emerge at that individual’s own rate often yielding deeply rooted information otherwise untapped.  Ultimately this course is about trusting the wisdom of the body and accepting its profound role in spiritual direction.

 

Course Objectives: see outline below

 

Course Requirements: 50% attendance, 50% participation

 

Outline:

Saturday, participants will:

• experience the relationship of one’s own body to movement elements of time, space and energy.
• understand the importance of the breath in affecting movement expression.
• take the first steps in examining the relationship of the moving body and spirit.
• explore movement interaction by engaging in movement experiences with another person or small groups of people.
• look at ways one’s own body movements affects the movement of another’s through body movement “conversations”.
• examine how one’s own choices of stillness or movement are influenced by the group when in the group is in a circle.  
• witness the power of the circle as a unifying agent.

 

Sunday, participants will:

·        experience body movement in relation to prayer and to the four paths of Creation Spirituality

• examine how movement is the entry to stillness and how stillness and movement are both part of spiritual growth and evolution.

 

Movement experiences are followed by group discussion. At times writing or simple drawing may be employed in place of discussion.